News Brief

Peter Hughes (Partner-San Diego) and Kelly Van Nort (Of Counsel-San Diego) defended an insurer that had issued an automobile policy containing uninsured and underinsured coverage (UIM) in a bad faith action after the insured was involved in an automobile accident. After settling with the third-party driver, the insured demanded policy limits under the UIM policy, and at arbitration was awarded approximately one quarter of his demand. The insured, however, filed the bad faith action alleging his insurer failed to properly investigate the UIM claim and delayed payment owed under the UIM policy. Peter and Kelly successfully moved for summary judgment in the bad faith action arguing that there was no bad faith because there was a genuine dispute as to coverage under the UIM policy. On appeal, the appellant sought to overturn the summary judgment arguing that the trial court’s decision was based on unreliable evidence presented to the arbitrator in the underlying UIM arbitration. Peter and Kelly successfully argued the appellant did not raise these arguments in the lower court and that the evidence presented established there was a genuine dispute as to coverage. Accordingly, the Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld summary judgment in favor of the insurer.

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More than 800 attorneys strong, Wilson Elser serves clients of all sizes, across multiple industries and around the world. Wilson Elser has 38 strategically located offices in the United States and one in London. It is also a founding member of Legalign Global, a close alliance of four of the world’s leading insurance law firms, created to assist companies doing business internationally. This depth and scale has made it one of the nation’s most influential law firms, ranked in the Am Law 200 and 56th in The National Law Journal’s NLJ 500.